I had a total blast hanging out working with Brian for the Canadian eLearning 2007 conference welcome reception entertainment gig we got coerced invited to do. Here’s the clip we put together as the intro segment for our Online Video Party redux, based on being in the spiritual home of the most inspired group of video comedians ever assembled: SCTV!
[flv:http://www.darcynorman.net/video/LiveFromDeadmonton2_320x240.flv 320 240]
That was re-edited and audio dubbed in a cookie-cutter “pub” in “Bourbon Street” at West Edmonton Mall. We could tell we were in “Bourbon Street” because of the authentic Celine Dion and Bryan Adams soundtrack, and the always impressive New Orleans wide selection of only the finest alcohols – Coors, Coors Lite, Bud and Bud Lite.
We took the vast majority of the videos from the video.learningparty.net site we used for the NMC Online Conference presentation of similar name. It was interesting – many of the videos work really well when viewing them by yourself, but really flop on their faces when viewed in a crowd on a big screen. And there were a couple videos that went the other way, too. Hard to predict what will work. We did manage to get at least a handful of edtechers to participate in a shared group video-induced hallucination, so that was a bonus 🙂
And, I got to play with Brian. That’s even worth spending a couple days in Deadmonchuck 😉 I’m still feeling the pain of letting Brian down. I forgot to bring The Hat, as I promised to do as part of my presentation garb. I tried to console him that it wasn’t an idle forgetting – The Hat was left at home, right beside Evan’s lifejacket that was to be used in the water park at West Edmonton Mall (we wound up renting a lifejacket for him, but I couldn’t find a Hat to rent in time…)
I’ll work on cleaning up the video playlist a bit and will share that somewhere. I might even compress down our edits and clip selections as shown to the conference folks. Unfortunately, I forgot to record the audio for the session, which may actually be a good thing…
I learned long ago, that when given the opportunity to do anything with Brian, I should jump on it. Doesn’t matter where, or what. Just do it. It’ll be interesting, or at least fun. Most likely, it’ll be both, in spades.
I was handed the chance to do something fun with Brian as part of the welcome reception for the Canadian eLearning 2007 Conference in Edmonton next week. It’s something new for the conference – entertainment as part of the welcome reception. What to do? People will be eating/drinking/talking, so a full-on presentation wouldn’t go over very well. What to do… What to do…
How about an Online Video Party?
So, we’ve picked a selection of videos, and will be queuing them up with some intro and discussion blabbidyblah. But mostly, we’ll watch some cool videos, and try to see how many people get freaked out by the trippy safe trippin’ test video. The first 3 rows will get wet.
I’ll have our video selections playing in a nice Keynote presentation, and will convert that to a web-friendly version after the event. I’ll also try to record audio during the session, in case anything interesting happens.
Live, from Edmonton, it’s [Tuesday] night!
Update: Added photos from my Flickr set from Northern Voice.
I've been meaning to make the time to put together some reflections on Northern Voice 2007 before the memories start to do that thing that memories do. Life intervened, and so here I am, almost a week afterward, trying to remember with as much clarity as I can muster, the defining moments of NV2007 (for me).
First, the openness and generosity of the Lamb/McPhee family continually blows me away. I had the pleasure of imposing on them while I was staying in Vancouver, and I truly felt (feel) like I'm a member of the family. As H. put it "You're a Lamb boy, but you're slow because you like the Stampeders."
I spent much of Wednesday in a meeting hosted by the Donat Group, where participants in the Social Learning shared hosting project affiliated with BCCampus were planning the next steps. It was interesting, but I have to wonder if a shared hosting model is really necessary. The recurring theme from the leaders at Northern Voice is that decentralized, individually controlled personal publishing trumps institutional endeavors every time. I wonder what would happen if the energy was put into finding a way to make that happen, rather than hand-holding institutions. Maybe that's a necessary first step to bring them into the era of social software, but it's not the target destination. I hope I don't get punted from the project for saying this, either…
Thursday was spent hanging out at Brian's place, planning sessions for MooseCamp. Brian and I tossed some ideas around for our "Mashups for Non Programmers" session (lead by Scott, with Chris Lott, Brian and myself). Brian and I had an idea that would have been cool to show – how to display a social network visually, on the fly? I spent too much time chasing that idea down the rabbit hole, then brought myself back and settled for making a mashup circa 1997 – a Northern Voice Zeitgeist using iframes and meta refresh to show a control panel view of the conference at a glance. The zeitgeist displays the most recent posts tagged with "nv07" via Technorati, a slideshow of NV07 images via Flickr, and a live java applet displaying the realtime IRC channel (the IRC channel has since been removed, because it's rather quiet after the conference).
Friday – MooseCamp. After finding our way to UBC and locating the Forestry building, we meet up with our co-conspirators for the Mashups session. We're up first thing, so we head to the room to set up. I go first, and spend some time showing Yahoo! Pipes. It pretty much embodies the "non-programmers" angle on how to do things. No code. No files to manage. Just point, click, fill in some blanks. It was working great, until I got to the third pipe to demo, when Pipes took an abrupt faceplant into the pavement. It must have hurt, because he didn't get up again. Next! Scott recovered for me, and showed some great mashups he's working on using non-Pipes applications. It went pretty well, until some of those apps started to fall over. [maybe this was a precurser of Moose Fever?] Brian then gave his vision for AggRSSive, which was compelling and entertaining (as he always is). Chris was last up to bat, but hit the ball the farthest with his in-the-trenches use of mashups (using Ning, etc…). Man, did I ever take the easy way out by focussing on Pipes. Doh. From the feedback I heard after the session, many of the attendees actually appreciated the fact that applications fell over on us, and that we were able to recover and keep moving. That's one thing you just have to do when dealing with online apps (especially those hosted by third parties). This was a really fun session. I'm humbled by the energy and effort put forth by my compatriots.
Also at MooseCamp, I got to co-present a session with Jim Groom called "More than just a blog" – we were showing things you can do with "blog" applications that aren't just cat diaries. This was a really fun session, especially the discussion at the end, when we devolved into WordPress vs. Drupal cutdowns. Good times. 🙂
Following that was the PhotoCamp session. It didn't have the same groovy vibe that it had last year, where it was basically just a flowing 2-hour conversation. This year was a series of mini-presentations with questions thrown in. Still a great session, but not the mind blowing experience of last year.
Friday night – to the Lamb/McPhee homestead for a Ceviche eating festival. A whole bunch of edu-folk (and many non-edu-folk) hung out, ate, drank and were merry. I got to hang out with Jim Groom and Chris Lott for the first time (aside from our sessions that day). It's really surprising just how genuine their blogs are, because it definitely felt like I already knew both of them. We ended up talking into the wee hours, coming back to the EduGlu concept several times over the evening (thanks to prodding from Jim). WHAT! IS! EDUGLUUUUUUU! – I just realized: I'm likely blending Thursday and Friday evenings. Jim, Scott and Chris came over after the Pre-Conference Gala and we had some great conversations (and beer). Similar pattern repeated on Friday evening. Blurr…
Saturday – Northern Voice (proper). Keynote by Anil Dash from SixApart. The dude works a Lessigian presentation pretty well. There were lots of cliches in the presentation, but some great lines, like "a date stamp is a social contract… that there will be more content to come"
Our "Social Software for Learning Environments" session went really well. Brian moderated, attempting to hold us to our scheduled presentation times. I rushed through showing a few sites we've set up here at UCalgary – various Drupal sites for online and blended learning communities. I was basically showing institutional approaches. Jon got up and showed the individual approaches he's been using successfully in his classes, including an example where a student was critiquing a book and the author responded with a very well thought out and deep comment. That's something that likely wouldn't happen in an institutional solution (but I could be wrong). Sylvia showed the SCoPE online community, and talked about some of the back-end things they're working on. Chris followed up with a demo of his work at UAF.
The Photography session of the more formal conference day ironically turned into the freeform discussion hangout that last year's MooseCamp/PhotoCamp session was. Kris masterfully led a discussion that wandered around topics such as workflow, composition, camera gear, lighting, using flash and diffusers, etc… One of the best sessions of the conference. Except for when Scoble had to keep piping up because we weren't talking about him enough. Jeez, Scoble. Isn't it enough to sit in the front row, shoving your monopod in front of the projector, but you have to throw your 2 cents in on every. single. question?
I was trying to take a fair number of photographs during the conference, especially during the sessions I was involved with. I came out with about 70 photos worth keeping, and of those there are a few I'm actually pretty proud of. It's also funny how my memory seems to work best when jogged by a photograph. I'll forget about something almost completely, then after seeing a photo of a session, I'll remember every detail.
Then there's the dreaded Moose Fever. I wasn't spared. I'm just shaking the last of it now (hopefully). We must find Patient Zero, and apply the Atomic Wedgie of Doom.
After last year's conference, the conversations kept ringing around in my head for weeks afterward, helping me to shape my thinking and pound out some ideas for things to do this year. I'm feeling the same effect this year, but I'm hoping I can actually implement some of the ideas this time. It's always surreal to see my blogroll come to life and operate in realtime. It's so much more effective to be having these discussions over ceviche and beer…
Update: I forgot to mention a couple of important things. First, it was definitely obvious that Alan wasn't there. Several people asked me where he was, and his energy was missed. Also, the Northern Voice session on wikis by Stewart Mader and John Willinsky was a good one. Stewart talked about how his book was authored in a wiki (ala Dan Gilmore), and John talked about how his education students are using wikis to collaborate on lesson plans, and how he's created a very impressive workflow as part of his curriculum (roles are assigned, and some students contribute content while others contrubute community moderation and "making sense and linking" the content). Very cool stuff, that.
Update: Added photos from my Flickr set from Northern Voice.
I’ve been meaning to make the time to put together some reflections on Northern Voice 2007 before the memories start to do that thing that memories do. Life intervened, and so here I am, almost a week afterward, trying to remember with as much clarity as I can muster, the defining moments of NV2007 (for me).
First, the openness and generosity of the Lamb/McPhee family continually blows me away. I had the pleasure of imposing on them while I was staying in Vancouver, and I truly felt (feel) like I’m a member of the family. As H. put it “You’re a Lamb boy, but you’re slow because you like the Stampeders.”
I spent much of Wednesday in a meeting hosted by the Donat Group, where participants in the Social Learning shared hosting project affiliated with BCCampus were planning the next steps. It was interesting, but I have to wonder if a shared hosting model is really necessary. The recurring theme from the leaders at Northern Voice is that decentralized, individually controlled personal publishing trumps institutional endeavors every time. I wonder what would happen if the energy was put into finding a way to make that happen, rather than hand-holding institutions. Maybe that’s a necessary first step to bring them into the era of social software, but it’s not the target destination. I hope I don’t get punted from the project for saying this, either…
Thursday was spent hanging out at Brian’s place, planning sessions for MooseCamp. Brian and I tossed some ideas around for our “Mashups for Non Programmers” session (lead by Scott, with Chris Lott, Brian and myself). Brian and I had an idea that would have been cool to show – how to display a social network visually, on the fly? I spent too much time chasing that idea down the rabbit hole, then brought myself back and settled for making a mashup circa 1997 – a Northern Voice Zeitgeist using iframes and meta refresh to show a control panel view of the conference at a glance. The zeitgeist displays the most recent posts tagged with “nv07” via Technorati, a slideshow of NV07 images via Flickr, and a live java applet displaying the realtime IRC channel (the IRC channel has since been removed, because it’s rather quiet after the conference).
Friday – MooseCamp. After finding our way to UBC and locating the Forestry building, we meet up with our co-conspirators for the Mashups session. We’re up first thing, so we head to the room to set up. I go first, and spend some time showing Yahoo! Pipes. It pretty much embodies the “non-programmers” angle on how to do things. No code. No files to manage. Just point, click, fill in some blanks. It was working great, until I got to the third pipe to demo, when Pipes took an abrupt faceplant into the pavement. It must have hurt, because he didn’t get up again. Next! Scott recovered for me, and showed some great mashups he’s working on using non-Pipes applications. It went pretty well, until some of those apps started to fall over. [maybe this was a precurser of Moose Fever?] Brian then gave his vision for AggRSSive, which was compelling and entertaining (as he always is). Chris was last up to bat, but hit the ball the farthest with his in-the-trenches use of mashups (using Ning, etc…). Man, did I ever take the easy way out by focussing on Pipes. Doh. From the feedback I heard after the session, many of the attendees actually appreciated the fact that applications fell over on us, and that we were able to recover and keep moving. That’s one thing you just have to do when dealing with online apps (especially those hosted by third parties). This was a really fun session. I’m humbled by the energy and effort put forth by my compatriots.
Also at MooseCamp, I got to co-present a session with Jim Groom called “More than just a blog” – we were showing things you can do with “blog” applications that aren’t just cat diaries. This was a really fun session, especially the discussion at the end, when we devolved into WordPress vs. Drupal cutdowns. Good times. 🙂
Following that was the PhotoCamp session. It didn’t have the same groovy vibe that it had last year, where it was basically just a flowing 2-hour conversation. This year was a series of mini-presentations with questions thrown in. Still a great session, but not the mind blowing experience of last year.
Friday night – to the Lamb/McPhee homestead for a Ceviche eating festival. A whole bunch of edu-folk (and many non-edu-folk) hung out, ate, drank and were merry. I got to hang out with Jim Groom and Chris Lott for the first time (aside from our sessions that day). It’s really surprising just how genuine their blogs are, because it definitely felt like I already knew both of them. We ended up talking into the wee hours, coming back to the EduGlu concept several times over the evening (thanks to prodding from Jim). WHAT! IS! EDUGLUUUUUUU! – I just realized: I’m likely blending Thursday and Friday evenings. Jim, Scott and Chris came over after the Pre-Conference Gala and we had some great conversations (and beer). Similar pattern repeated on Friday evening. Blurr…
Saturday – Northern Voice (proper). Keynote by Anil Dash from SixApart. The dude works a Lessigian presentation pretty well. There were lots of cliches in the presentation, but some great lines, like “a date stamp is a social contract… that there will be more content to come”
Our “Social Software for Learning Environments” session went really well. Brian moderated, attempting to hold us to our scheduled presentation times. I rushed through showing a few sites we’ve set up here at UCalgary – various Drupal sites for online and blended learning communities. I was basically showing institutional approaches. Jon got up and showed the individual approaches he’s been using successfully in his classes, including an example where a student was critiquing a book and the author responded with a very well thought out and deep comment. That’s something that likely wouldn’t happen in an institutional solution (but I could be wrong). Sylvia showed the SCoPE online community, and talked about some of the back-end things they’re working on. Chris followed up with a demo of his work at UAF.
The Photography session of the more formal conference day ironically turned into the freeform discussion hangout that last year’s MooseCamp/PhotoCamp session was. Kris masterfully led a discussion that wandered around topics such as workflow, composition, camera gear, lighting, using flash and diffusers, etc… One of the best sessions of the conference. Except for when Scoble had to keep piping up because we weren’t talking about him enough. Jeez, Scoble. Isn’t it enough to sit in the front row, shoving your monopod in front of the projector, but you have to throw your 2 cents in on every. single. question?
I was trying to take a fair number of photographs during the conference, especially during the sessions I was involved with. I came out with about 70 photos worth keeping, and of those there are a few I’m actually pretty proud of. It’s also funny how my memory seems to work best when jogged by a photograph. I’ll forget about something almost completely, then after seeing a photo of a session, I’ll remember every detail.
Then there’s the dreaded Moose Fever. I wasn’t spared. I’m just shaking the last of it now (hopefully). We must find Patient Zero, and apply the Atomic Wedgie of Doom.
After last year’s conference, the conversations kept ringing around in my head for weeks afterward, helping me to shape my thinking and pound out some ideas for things to do this year. I’m feeling the same effect this year, but I’m hoping I can actually implement some of the ideas this time. It’s always surreal to see my blogroll come to life and operate in realtime. It’s so much more effective to be having these discussions over ceviche and beer…
Update: I forgot to mention a couple of important things. First, it was definitely obvious that Alan wasn’t there. Several people asked me where he was, and his energy was missed. Also, the Northern Voice session on wikis by Stewart Mader and John Willinsky was a good one. Stewart talked about how his book was authored in a wiki (ala Dan Gilmore), and John talked about how his education students are using wikis to collaborate on lesson plans, and how he’s created a very impressive workflow as part of his curriculum (roles are assigned, and some students contribute content while others contrubute community moderation and “making sense and linking” the content). Very cool stuff, that.
Registration for Northern Voice 2007 just opened up. The speaker list and schedule hasn’t been announced yet, but if it’s anything like the first two NV events, it’s going to be absofrigging great. I’m not sure how I’m getting there yet, but I’ll be there. I may have bandages on my back where my kidneys were, but it’ll be worth it. I just registered for both days.
Registration for Northern Voice 2007 just opened up. The speaker list and schedule hasn’t been announced yet, but if it’s anything like the first two NV events, it’s going to be absofrigging great. I’m not sure how I’m getting there yet, but I’ll be there. I may have bandages on my back where my kidneys were, but it’ll be worth it. I just registered for both days.
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I headed downtown this morning (waaaaay earlier than I'd have liked) to attend the Lexi.net Online Identity Conference. I was curious to see what an internet-related conference would look like in Calgary, having been involved in others elsewhere. I wore my NV '05 t-shirt, of course 🙂
I got downtown too early – the buses out of Tuscany go straight downtown, but the last one passes my house at 6:45. So, I had some time to kill before and after registration. What to do… I know! A photo walk down Stephen Avenue Mall!
I wound up taking over 60 photos during the pre-sunrise twilight, and after the sun came up.
What was I talking about? Oh. Right. The conference. After frostbite set in my fingertips, I headed back to the Telus Conference Centre, grabbed some caffeine, and talked a bit with some other attendees, including Wired.com writer Regina Lynn, Aaron J. Seigo, Doug aka Dr. Tongue, and a bunch of others.
The first session was on privacy and anonymity, with some interesting links. Not sure it was aimed at the right audience, though.
After that, I went to Kirstin Darguzas' session on Blogging Your Identity. Kirstin is a professional "mommy blogger" and gave a really good talk on boundaries, online identities, and what it's like being a full time blogger (doesn't sound like as much fun as one would think).
Next up was Janine Warner, talking about Virtual Images – finding out what's available about you online, and how you can take control of it. Very interesting talk, with links to a few tools I hadn't heard of before. I gather her usual audience is more CXO-oriented, so some of the strategies may not be needed by us mere mortals (I'm not about to pay $120 for a company to research what's online about me – this blog likely does a good enough job of drowning out anything I don't know about 🙂 )
During the lunch keynote session, Heather "Dooce.com" Armstrong told the back story of her blog, how she got fired (yeah, she deserved it ;-)) and how things are much better as a result. I was very interested in her descriptions of personnas and boundaries. What's off limits? What's fair game? She's much more willing to blog about her family than I am, which is fine since they seem to be relatively comfortable with it (aside from Jon's squirming at some of the stories). The lighting backdrop during her talk was mesmerizing/distracting, with fluid Fire and Ice rolling up and down the wall behind her and onto the ceiling. Very cool. But distracting.
Jon Armstrong gave a great presentation after lunch about Branding. He gave a an overview of the general process of branding (initially for companies, later for individuals, mostly about Apple 🙂 ) Jon's pretty funny, and his Keynote skills were refreshing. Mostly a simplified Lessigian style presentation, marred only by the lack of a wireless controller.
I had to leave before the last session, but having chatted with Regina, I'm sure it was another good one. Sorry I had to leave early, Gina!
I was rather impressed with the conference. I was quite surprised at the international (well, binational) attendees. About half of the people I talked with were in town from the States just for the conference.
It had quite a different feel from a Northern Voice (this was much more formal/traditional) but was much more intimate than an NMC or WWDC. Not a bad balance. Maybe Calgary's ready for Northern Voice YYC? The venue would be completely wrong for that, though. No wireless, for one thing. No wireless? Really? WTF. Wait – I left the laptop at home anyway 🙂 I just brought my camera and a little reporter-style notepad. A much better way to attend a conference.
I headed downtown this morning (waaaaay earlier than I'd have liked) to attend the Lexi.net Online Identity Conference. I was curious to see what an internet-related conference would look like in Calgary, having been involved in others elsewhere. I wore my NV '05 t-shirt, of course 🙂
I got downtown too early – the buses out of Tuscany go straight downtown, but the last one passes my house at 6:45. So, I had some time to kill before and after registration. What to do… I know! A photo walk down Stephen Avenue Mall!
I wound up taking over 60 photos during the pre-sunrise twilight, and after the sun came up.
What was I talking about? Oh. Right. The conference. After frostbite set in my fingertips, I headed back to the Telus Conference Centre, grabbed some caffeine, and talked a bit with some other attendees, including Wired.com writer Regina Lynn, Aaron J. Seigo, Doug aka Dr. Tongue, and a bunch of others.
The first session was on privacy and anonymity, with some interesting links. Not sure it was aimed at the right audience, though.
After that, I went to Kirstin Darguzas' session on Blogging Your Identity. Kirstin is a professional "mommy blogger" and gave a really good talk on boundaries, online identities, and what it's like being a full time blogger (doesn't sound like as much fun as one would think).
Next up was Janine Warner, talking about Virtual Images – finding out what's available about you online, and how you can take control of it. Very interesting talk, with links to a few tools I hadn't heard of before. I gather her usual audience is more CXO-oriented, so some of the strategies may not be needed by us mere mortals (I'm not about to pay $120 for a company to research what's online about me – this blog likely does a good enough job of drowning out anything I don't know about 🙂 )
During the lunch keynote session, Heather "Dooce.com" Armstrong told the back story of her blog, how she got fired (yeah, she deserved it ;-)) and how things are much better as a result. I was very interested in her descriptions of personnas and boundaries. What's off limits? What's fair game? She's much more willing to blog about her family than I am, which is fine since they seem to be relatively comfortable with it (aside from Jon's squirming at some of the stories). The lighting backdrop during her talk was mesmerizing/distracting, with fluid Fire and Ice rolling up and down the wall behind her and onto the ceiling. Very cool. But distracting.
Jon Armstrong gave a great presentation after lunch about Branding. He gave a an overview of the general process of branding (initially for companies, later for individuals, mostly about Apple 🙂 ) Jon's pretty funny, and his Keynote skills were refreshing. Mostly a simplified Lessigian style presentation, marred only by the lack of a wireless controller.
I had to leave before the last session, but having chatted with Regina, I'm sure it was another good one. Sorry I had to leave early, Gina!
I was rather impressed with the conference. I was quite surprised at the international (well, binational) attendees. About half of the people I talked with were in town from the States just for the conference.
It had quite a different feel from a Northern Voice (this was much more formal/traditional) but was much more intimate than an NMC or WWDC. Not a bad balance. Maybe Calgary's ready for Northern Voice YYC? The venue would be completely wrong for that, though. No wireless, for one thing. No wireless? Really? WTF. Wait – I left the laptop at home anyway 🙂 I just brought my camera and a little reporter-style notepad. A much better way to attend a conference.
I’m sitting in the airport in Vancouver (and later on the plane coming home) and wanted to capture some of the thoughts I have about how the keynote went. I’m absolutely exhausted, so I’m not sure how coherent this is going to be, but it’s important to get this down before it’s glossed over and starts to fade away.
Some context – this was my first keynote as presenter (well, co-presenter), so I was a bit intimidated by that. I’ve been part of (and have given) presentations to very large groups, but never as Keynote Presenter™. Our ideas about what the keynote should be about all revolved around topics involving individual autonomy and control of content and learning, of ownership, and of thinking critically about the nature of relationships between students and teachers, as well as with institutions. Education vs. learning. Individual vs. institutional. Some potentially radical and non-traditional keynote topics, which would be completely unsuited to a conventional powerpoint chalk-and-talk presentation.
We had been joking about going into the keynote unprepared – I think mostly to mask nervousness about taking such a big risk with a “keynote” session. The three of us have been tossing around ideas and spit-balling what we’d like to do in the session for a couple of weeks – hoping to generate a level of discomfort and disorientation in the attendees – that this session belongs to them, not us. That learning belongs to the individual, not the institution. That they are in control of what they do, as are their students.
It was easily the scariest and highest “risk” sessions I’ve ever been involved in. We all knew going in that there was a real chance of some pretty dramatic “failure” if the people in the audience didn’t engage.
The first 20 minutes of the session were sheer torture (ironically, amplified by the fact that the microphones Just Didn’t Work™). We started by coming off the stage to emphasize that the session wasn’t “ours”. We all had wireless microphones, and were trying to wander, to solicit some form of involvement. We set up a web-based chat room to serve as a back channel, and left that on the Big Screen to help direct the session (I’ll come back to that later).
At first, every single attendee looked freaked out, uncomfortable, and wondering what the hell was going on. Why wasn’t there a powerpoint on the screen? Why are these jokers just wandering around? What’s going on? This is the lamest thing I’ve ever seen! What are they DOING? What a waste of time…
After the initial uncomfortableness wore off a little, people started to get into it. Certainly not everyone. The feeling of discomfort in the room was pretty tangible. I wound up subconsciously moving back closer to the stage to provide a semblance of a traditional keynote, I suppose trying to put people a bit at ease. Or, it might have been to put myself at ease.
This was by far the riskiest thing I’ve ever done professionally. I parachuted into Vancouver, and attempted to lead/herd 500(?) strangers into some form of guided anarchy. I was so far outside of my comfort zone it wasn’t even funny, fighting the urge to just bolt from the room. What the hell were we thinking?
And then it felt like it started to gel, at least for a portion of the audience. Some extremely interesting points were raised, and answered by responses from other attendees. We shifted to more of a Phil Donohue role, running with the microphones to people who wanted to speak up. Not everyone got engaged, but enough to drive the conversation forward.
For the last quarter of the session, we started to get some momentum. Questions and responses started to pile up, and I stopped hogging the microphone as much. If we’d had an extra 15 minutes, I think most people would have reached a level of comfort with what was going on so they would have gotten more out of the session. It didn’t hurt that everyone stayed seated for the iPod door prize draws.
The web chat back channel served an invaluable purpose. People were able to anonymously put “huh?”, or “what are they TALKING about?”, or “talk about GLU!” comments (etc…) up on the big screen, helping to guide the session. I think that open back channel helped to save the session, as it helped us get a better feel for what the Audience was going through. I’ll be keeping an archive of that chat transcript available to serve as reference later.
One thing I realized is that it is extremely hard to read an audience that size. A small group is easy to read. You can make eye contact. You can hear comments, rustling, shifting. You can see attention diverting. But in a room with several hundred people, it is hard to get a feel for what is going on. Even when someone was talking, it was quite hard to spot them in the sea of attendees.
So, what are the lessons learned from this?
- Open, anonymous back channels are insanely important to helping to keep a finger on the pulse of a Large Audience. The anonymity is important because people don’t have to worry about offending by saying something’s gone off the tracks, or is boring, or just by suggesting a topic without having to be put on the spot with a microphone shoved in their face. Having a working wireless network, and an audience with capable laptops, definitely helped here. But not everyone had a laptop. This works out something like “clickers” on steroids, and could be a useful strategy for other presentations, or in the classroom in general.
- The audience was too large for this kind of activity. Even half the size would have been better. This was approximately the same activity we’d run at both the Social Software Salon and Edublogger Hootenanny, but those events had participant counts around 12-ish and 50-ish, respectively. I hold those previous events as the best sessions I’ve ever been involved with, and am extremely proud of what we were able to do. That chemistry just didn’t happen during this keynote. Perhaps the audience-is-the-presentation model doesn’t scale to 300-500 people? More thought needed on this…
- Defining a narrower topic or series of topics is important. We’d set up the wiki page, but failed to fall back on it when the audience wasn’t engaging – we were perhaps overcommitted to drawing the audience out? Back to the Salon and Hootenanny – both had (comparatively) narrow topics well defined ahead of time. We’d tried to do that with the wiki page, but didn’t successfully fall back on it when things didn’t move forward fast enough.
In the final conclusion, I felt the session was both a success and a failure. I personally rated it at 5/10. Stephen gave it a 6/10. That’s not great. I’m not used to that. But, I think that it’s actually a good thing. I’d been staying inside my comfort zone way too long. It’s crucial to stretch out and try new things. Failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Worst case scenario, we modeled some risk-taking behaviour for the attendees, and survived the experience. Best case scenario, some of the attendees will have walked away with the seeds of some important new ideas waiting to germinate sometime in the future. No way to track that, though.
Am I going to be a little gun-shy about doing a session like this again? Probably. I’ll have to put some thought into how to ensure the session remains useful and interesting for everyone. It’s not acceptable to just push forward, knowing that half the audience is not with you (or, you’re not with them).
After the session, we schlepped our exhausted carcasses across the street to a hole-in-the-wall pub for debriefing. The discussion that Stephen, Brian and myself had there over a few brews was worth the trip and the risk all by itself. I’ve been needing that discussion for a long time, and am feeling a renewed sense of energy that I hope will last for a while. I think I will benefit a lot from learning about Stephen’s walkabout, as well as Brian’s thoughts and feedback. Thanks for that. You are both true friends, in every sense.
Update: Added podcast link to the audio recorded by Stephen.
I’m sitting in the airport in Vancouver (and later on the plane coming home) and wanted to capture some of the thoughts I have about how the keynote went. I’m absolutely exhausted, so I’m not sure how coherent this is going to be, but it’s important to get this down before it’s glossed over and starts to fade away.
Some context – this was my first keynote as presenter (well, co-presenter), so I was a bit intimidated by that. I’ve been part of (and have given) presentations to very large groups, but never as Keynote Presenter™. Our ideas about what the keynote should be about all revolved around topics involving individual autonomy and control of content and learning, of ownership, and of thinking critically about the nature of relationships between students and teachers, as well as with institutions. Education vs. learning. Individual vs. institutional. Some potentially radical and non-traditional keynote topics, which would be completely unsuited to a conventional powerpoint chalk-and-talk presentation.
We had been joking about going into the keynote unprepared – I think mostly to mask nervousness about taking such a big risk with a “keynote” session. The three of us have been tossing around ideas and spit-balling what we’d like to do in the session for a couple of weeks – hoping to generate a level of discomfort and disorientation in the attendees – that this session belongs to them, not us. That learning belongs to the individual, not the institution. That they are in control of what they do, as are their students.
It was easily the scariest and highest “risk” sessions I’ve ever been involved in. We all knew going in that there was a real chance of some pretty dramatic “failure” if the people in the audience didn’t engage.
The first 20 minutes of the session were sheer torture (ironically, amplified by the fact that the microphones Just Didn’t Work™). We started by coming off the stage to emphasize that the session wasn’t “ours”. We all had wireless microphones, and were trying to wander, to solicit some form of involvement. We set up a web-based chat room to serve as a back channel, and left that on the Big Screen to help direct the session (I’ll come back to that later).
At first, every single attendee looked freaked out, uncomfortable, and wondering what the hell was going on. Why wasn’t there a powerpoint on the screen? Why are these jokers just wandering around? What’s going on? This is the lamest thing I’ve ever seen! What are they DOING? What a waste of time…
After the initial uncomfortableness wore off a little, people started to get into it. Certainly not everyone. The feeling of discomfort in the room was pretty tangible. I wound up subconsciously moving back closer to the stage to provide a semblance of a traditional keynote, I suppose trying to put people a bit at ease. Or, it might have been to put myself at ease.
This was by far the riskiest thing I’ve ever done professionally. I parachuted into Vancouver, and attempted to lead/herd 500(?) strangers into some form of guided anarchy. I was so far outside of my comfort zone it wasn’t even funny, fighting the urge to just bolt from the room. What the hell were we thinking?
And then it felt like it started to gel, at least for a portion of the audience. Some extremely interesting points were raised, and answered by responses from other attendees. We shifted to more of a Phil Donohue role, running with the microphones to people who wanted to speak up. Not everyone got engaged, but enough to drive the conversation forward.
For the last quarter of the session, we started to get some momentum. Questions and responses started to pile up, and I stopped hogging the microphone as much. If we’d had an extra 15 minutes, I think most people would have reached a level of comfort with what was going on so they would have gotten more out of the session. It didn’t hurt that everyone stayed seated for the iPod door prize draws.
The web chat back channel served an invaluable purpose. People were able to anonymously put “huh?”, or “what are they TALKING about?”, or “talk about GLU!” comments (etc…) up on the big screen, helping to guide the session. I think that open back channel helped to save the session, as it helped us get a better feel for what the Audience was going through. I’ll be keeping an archive of that chat transcript available to serve as reference later.
One thing I realized is that it is extremely hard to read an audience that size. A small group is easy to read. You can make eye contact. You can hear comments, rustling, shifting. You can see attention diverting. But in a room with several hundred people, it is hard to get a feel for what is going on. Even when someone was talking, it was quite hard to spot them in the sea of attendees.
So, what are the lessons learned from this?
- Open, anonymous back channels are insanely important to helping to keep a finger on the pulse of a Large Audience. The anonymity is important because people don’t have to worry about offending by saying something’s gone off the tracks, or is boring, or just by suggesting a topic without having to be put on the spot with a microphone shoved in their face. Having a working wireless network, and an audience with capable laptops, definitely helped here. But not everyone had a laptop. This works out something like “clickers” on steroids, and could be a useful strategy for other presentations, or in the classroom in general.
- The audience was too large for this kind of activity. Even half the size would have been better. This was approximately the same activity we’d run at both the Social Software Salon and Edublogger Hootenanny, but those events had participant counts around 12-ish and 50-ish, respectively. I hold those previous events as the best sessions I’ve ever been involved with, and am extremely proud of what we were able to do. That chemistry just didn’t happen during this keynote. Perhaps the audience-is-the-presentation model doesn’t scale to 300-500 people? More thought needed on this…
- Defining a narrower topic or series of topics is important. We’d set up the wiki page, but failed to fall back on it when the audience wasn’t engaging – we were perhaps overcommitted to drawing the audience out? Back to the Salon and Hootenanny – both had (comparatively) narrow topics well defined ahead of time. We’d tried to do that with the wiki page, but didn’t successfully fall back on it when things didn’t move forward fast enough.
In the final conclusion, I felt the session was both a success and a failure. I personally rated it at 5/10. Stephen gave it a 6/10. That’s not great. I’m not used to that. But, I think that it’s actually a good thing. I’d been staying inside my comfort zone way too long. It’s crucial to stretch out and try new things. Failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Worst case scenario, we modeled some risk-taking behaviour for the attendees, and survived the experience. Best case scenario, some of the attendees will have walked away with the seeds of some important new ideas waiting to germinate sometime in the future. No way to track that, though.
Am I going to be a little gun-shy about doing a session like this again? Probably. I’ll have to put some thought into how to ensure the session remains useful and interesting for everyone. It’s not acceptable to just push forward, knowing that half the audience is not with you (or, you’re not with them).
After the session, we schlepped our exhausted carcasses across the street to a hole-in-the-wall pub for debriefing. The discussion that Stephen, Brian and myself had there over a few brews was worth the trip and the risk all by itself. I’ve been needing that discussion for a long time, and am feeling a renewed sense of energy that I hope will last for a while. I think I will benefit a lot from learning about Stephen’s walkabout, as well as Brian’s thoughts and feedback. Thanks for that. You are both true friends, in every sense.
Update: Added a link to the audio recorded by Stephen.